Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Distance skater Horace Munoz, Jr

Skating laps
Horace Munoz skates laps at the Guidant John Rose Oval in Roseville, Minn. Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Munoz has been skating at the Oval since shortly after it opened in 1993.
MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson

With the unseasonably warm weather this February across Minnesota, the sound of skate blades on ice feels increasingly endangered. But not at the Guidant John Rose Minnesota skating oval in Roseville, where the huge sheet of ice is refrigerated.

That's where Minnesota Sounds and Voices reporter Dan Olson met Twin Cities distance skater Horace Munoz, Jr., who is on pace to skate the distance from Roseville to Chicago -- and back.

Munoz estimates he has skated nearly 3,000 laps so far this ice skating season and has just over 1,000 more to go to reach his goal. MPR multimedia journalist Jeffrey Thompson accompanied Olson, and prepared the sounds and slideshow, below.

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